Policy Assessment: Laura’s Law (AB 1421) Laura’s Law (AB 1421) addresses some of the problems that the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act left us. In 1967, Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS) which tried to address the inappropriate, indefinite and involuntary commitment of the mentally ill, by deinstitutionalization. There were great intentions in the LPS Act, trading institutional care for advanced services in the community. However, what was not covered by the LPS Act was financing for the outpatient community mental health services. With deinstitutionalization came a loss shelter, food, medical care, along with a variety of other basic needs which some say was the starting point of our present day problem of a large population of homeless, where many struggle with …show more content…
(2015). Laura's law: A policy analysis. , . California Legislative Information. (2002). AB-1421 Mental health: involuntary treatment. (2001-2002). Retrieved from: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=200120020AB1421 Ridgely, S.M., Borum, R., & Petrila, J. (2001). RAND: The effectiveness of involuntary outpatient treatment: Empirical evidence and the experience of eight states. Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2007/MR1340.pdf Placer County Grand Jury. Placer County Grand Jury (2016). Placer County Implements Assisted Outpatient Treatment: “Laura’s Law”. Retrieved from: http://www.placer.courts.ca.gov/grandjury/2015-2016/Placer-County-Mental-Health-Report-v2-individual.pdf National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Sacramento. (2017). Laura’s Law. Retrieved from: http://www.namisacramento.org/advocacy/lauras_law.html Mental Health Association of San Francisco (MHASF). (2013). 1421: Involuntary Outpatient Treatment/AOT/Laura’s Law: Ineffective, Redundant, Discriminatory. Retrieved from:
In 1965, there was a histrionic change in the method that mental health care was delivered in the United States. The focus went from State Mental Hospitals to outpatient settings for the treatment of mental health issues. With the passing of Medicaid, States were encouraged to move patients out of the hospital setting (Pan, 2013). This process failed miserably due to under funding and understaffing for the amout of patients that were released from the State Mental Hospitals. This resulted in patients, as well as their families, who were in dire need of mental health services. This population turned to either incarceration (jails and/or prisons) or emergency departments as a primary source of care for their loved ones.
Another law enacted addresses mental health issues is Kendra’s Law. Under this law, mentally ill people generally respond well to treatment but are unable to maintain recovery independently (Evans, 2015 b; Brennan, 2009). Under Kendra’s Law, there is an established procedure is used for clients to receive and accept outpatient treatment (Evans, 2015 b; Brennan, 2009). Kendra’s Law established certain criteria that would allow the court to require a person to participate in an assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) if they meet certain criteria (Evans, 2015 b; Perlin, 2003). According to Perlin (2003), the criteria for a person to be court ordered to submit to AOT is that the person is at least 18 years of age and suffering from a mental illness
Outpatient Commitment also referred as Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) alludes to state psychological well-being laws that make civil court technique where in a judge requests a man with serious mental sickness to stick to an outpatient treatment arrangement intended to relapse and unsafe worsening. Assisted Outpatient Commitment permits the helped involuntary treatment of people determined to have serious mental issue who are living in the community and encountering an psychological illness emergency that require intercession to avoid further detorioration that is hurtful to themselves or others, instead of held in medical
Hi Erica, I totally agree, that the most positive action that came out of assisted outpatient treatment (AOT), is that patient got the treatment they needed. I don't know if you remember the case with Senator Creigh Deeds in Virginia, he was stabbed multiple timed by his mentally ill son. Moreover, the son was admitted to the hospital the day before the stabbing for treatment of mental illness. The senator son was release the next day in custody of his family because there was no beds available, where he could be treated." In Virginia, mental-health authorities can hold people for four to six hours after a magistrate judge issues an emergency custody order. After that, a magistrate must issue a temporary detention order, or TDO, to allow an
Ultimately, involuntary commitment remains a complicated medically and ethically debated topic; one that creates a conflict and clear divide, between individuals who content that involuntary commitment results in vulnerable individuals with psychiatric illnesses being subjective to coercion and civil rights infringement, and those who believe, based on the principle of utility, that involuntary commitment is essential and integral to the safety of the those with psychiatric illnesses, as well as to society as a whole. Both sides offer empirical evidence, as well as moral support for why they believe involuntary commitment is either legally and morally acceptable, or ethically unacceptable, and thereby should be illegal. Regardless, infringing
The mentally ill got actual treatment for their mental illnesses instead of just being tossed into jail. This approach reduced the amount of time law enforcement officers had to wait in the ER on a mental illness case from 8-14 hours to about 15 minutes when police took those in crisis to treatment centers. The amount of money spent by sending those with mental illnesses to jail was $2,995 per incident but with this approach of instead taking them to a treatment center, the amount of taxpayer’s money spent went down to $350 per incident. The third approach took place in Seattle and it involved the LEAD program which was a treatment program. The LEAD program works with drug abusers which often times are long-term drug abusers to help them customize a way out and get them back on their feet instead of ending up dead or in jail. The approximate cost per person for 30 days in jail was $3,104 of taxpayer’s money opposed to $240 in the LEAD
The report of the grand jury in Dade County, Florida had several recommendations for dealing with the mentally ill who find themselves incarcerated. What this jury concluded was that far too much tax dollars is being spent on trying to temporarily control the issues associated with the mentally ill and too much focus is on reacting to crisis care. This panel of jurors believes that shifting the focus to long-term care would not only save costs, but also prevent the predicament we face by incarcerating the mentally ill.
With states closing many of its mental facilities in the communities, there were a lot of people in need of outpatient care who fell through the cracks of the system and ended up in prison. Prison is where many of them died from inadequate treatment. Prisons were suddenly receiving inmates with the following types of mental illnesses: Schizophrenia, bipolar, and deep depressions. These prisons just did not provide these inmates with any medication during their incarceration. Because the community based health services is lacking, and patients aren’t receiving sufficient outpatient care, it makes the effectiveness of deinstitutionalization a serious problem. Without the availability of 24/7 psychiatric services that are well structured, I believe that deinstitutionalization is what is accounting for the increase of the mentally ill inmates in the correctional facility.
These two men set out on a campaign with the theme “fix the broken promise” which referred to Ronald Regan’s promise to use the funding that came from the closing of many mental hospitals for the care of the discharged patients (Peck 2005). The campaign put together “pilot programs” like the programs that are offered today in the actual act (Peck 2005). There was an overwhelming positive reaction with a “56% reduction in hospital stays, a 72% reduction in jail stays, and a 65% increase in people with full-time jobs” (Peck 2005). With law enforcement on their side (having seen what these programs would do to decrease the mentally ill population), they gained a tremendous amount of supporters for their cause. Darrell Stein dedicated a year of his life for this cause and helped raise close to $4.6 million for the campaign (Peck 2009).
The theory of ‘deinstitutionalization’ began arising with the theory of providing more freedom to the mentally ill and less spending on full time care facilities. The widespread use of drugs to control the mentally ill in the 1900s led to a mass release of patients and an emptying of asylums. Outpatient Psychiatric Clinics were established. Case Law in the United States began to be generated to provide the mentally ill with greater rights. Shelton v. Tucker 1960 provided that the mentally ill should receive care in the “least restrictive alternative”, which is a practice still utilized. O’Connor v. Donaldson 1975 ruled that non-dangerous mental patients have the right to be treated or discharged if they have been institutionalized against their will. This new approached permitted the mass exodus
AOT was proposed in the 1980’s by families of mentally ill citizens. This treatment program was formally known as Involuntary Outpatient Commitment (IOC). Anosognosia individuals resist treatment due to their belief of not having a mental illness and as a result they become a danger to themselves and potentially
In an effort to transform the public mental health system, in 1963, President Kennedy proposed the Community Mental Health Act. It was the first among several federal initiatives to create a community mental health care system. Once the act was ratified, there was an intense deterioration in institutionalization, otherwise known as “deinstitutionalization”, and by 1980 there was a 75% declined of the inpatient population at many public psychiatric hospitals. In 2000, there was less than 10% of the public institutionalized just fifty years earlier. In 2009, there was even a more dramatic shift among children and adolescence whereby there was a 98% decline in
The United States has never had an official federal-centered approach for mental health care facilities, entrusting its responsibility to the states throughout the history. The earliest initiatives in this field took place in the 18th century, when Virginia built its first asylum and Pennsylvania Hospital reserved its basement to house individuals with mental disorders (Sundararaman, 2009). During the 19th century, other services were built, but their overall lack of quality was alarming. Even then, researchers and professionals in the mental health field attempted to implement the principles of the so-called public health, focusing on prevention and early intervention, but the funds were in the hands of the local governments, which prevented significant advances in this direction.
Washtenaw ACT (Assertive Community Treatment) is my current field placement and area of interest. The agency monitors medication, coordinates and links clients to resources, assesses mental health, and assists in the planning and advocating for our clients social status, mental health and overall well-being for individuals with a severe and persistent mental illness (CSTS, 2011). With all of the great methods we use at ACT, we do not use any of the current information or techniques we have discussed this far in class. Severe and persistent mentally ill populations show the most immediate benefits from psychotropic medication involved treatments. A meta-analysis of 106 studies found that individuals with psychotropic medications were more improved than 65% of individuals treated with somatic methods only (Bently, 2002).
The United States criminal justice system has been continuously increasing incarceration among individuals who suffer from a sever mental illness. As of 2007 individuals with severe mental illness were over twice as likely to be found in prisons than in society (National Commission of Correctional Health Care, 2002, as cited in Litschge &Vaughn, 2009). The offenses that lead to their commitment in a criminal facility, in the majority of cases, derive from symptoms of their mental illness instead of deviant behavior. Our criminal justice system is failing those who would benefit more from the care of a psychiatric rehabilitation facility or psychiatric hospital by placing them in correctional facilities or prisons.